Daily COVID-19 roundup: June 8

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Here are the latest figures on COVID-19 as of Sunday, June 7:

Statements on Sunday from the leaders of Egypt’s COVID-19 response:

• Egypt’s epidemiological curve isn’t yet at its “worst,” said Dr. Mohamed Hassan, deputy to the Health Ministry for Public Health Initiatives in a meeting with Parliament’s Health Committee. Hassan said that 25% of the total cases had recovered, and that the death rate had fallen from 7% to 3%.
• • Hassan restated that people self-isolating can stop after “not showing symptoms for 10 consecutive days,” and that there would be no need for a PCR test to confirm this, in order to “alleviate pressure on hospitals and PCR tests.” He added that 50% of cases were now self-quarantining at home.
• Dr. Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin, health advisor to the president, suggested a vaccine could be available by September, saying that the vaccine “has proven effective in preliminary clinical trials.” Although Tag Eddin did not mention the name of the vaccine, he seemed to be referring to the highly anticipated Oxford vaccine.
   
• Several news items on Sunday spoke to trouble in sorting out hospital staffing and filling vacancies urgently needed to supply medical teams during the pandemic:
  • The health minister failed to show up to a Sunday meeting scheduled with Hussein Khairy, head of the Doctors Syndicate. The meeting was reportedly due to address the urgent need to assign a new cohort of medical graduates to their residency placements, something Minister Hala Zayed had pledged to work closely with the Doctors Syndicate on. Ministry sources told Cairo24 that deputies and assistants were sent in her place, though a syndicate source told Cairo24 that Dr. Khairy was “furious,” and said the meeting was “ineffective” because the minister’s assistants could not commit to any action. The system for medical graduate posts has been criticized fiercely by the syndicate and the 7,000 newly qualified doctors awaiting their assignments, after Khairy and Zayed met last week. 
  • Cairo University seemed to have made a step to appoint newly qualified doctors, however, announcing that 129 graduates had been assigned to one-year residency posts at teaching hospitals. The contracts are eligible for renewal for up to five years.
  • In the meantime, vacancies for nursing posts drew hundreds of applicants on Sunday, causing a pile up outside a Health Ministry building. To avoid overcrowding, the ministry stopped accepting applications, telling applicants to hand applications to their local branch of the Nurses Syndicate instead.
  • It appears that female doctors will be allowed to take leave for childcare, after governors were told to prevent all doctors from taking leave for the next two months last week. The Health Ministry’s statement followed demands from the Doctors Syndicate and several MPs last week. A ministry source told Cairo24 that the ministry had signed off on a decision on June 3 that allowed female doctors with children under two years of age paid leave to take care of their children. The source failed to clarify why the ministry failed to announce the exception.
     
• In updates around the controversy of pricing at private hospitals on Sunday:
  • “Private hospitals are still giving healthcare services to COVID-19 patients,” said Dr. Ahmed Nazeeh, spokesperson for the Chamber of Private Healthcare Providers at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, speaking to the DMC TV channel on Sunday night.
  • Nazeeh thereby denied remarks from Khalid Samer, another chamber member, who said on TV last week that the “majority of private hospitals” suspended services for COVID-19 cases to protest the Health Ministry private pricing scheme.
  • Nazeeh said that private hospitals are abiding by the ministry’s instructions, and claimed the hospitals are treating “emergency patients” for free, on the agreement that the state will cover the costs.
  • Yet Nazeeh added that the private hospitals need three things from the ministry:
    • To allow private hospitals and testing labs to conduct PCR tests
    • To include the private healthcare sector in the Unified Purchasing Authority’s medication procurement scheme for COVID-19 medicines, due to the shortage in supply.
    • To roll out “unified” and “specific” criteria to determine hospitals’ eligibility to admit COVID-19 patients.
• Elsewhere the health minister called once again on citizens who had been charged exorbitant fees for COVID-19 services at private hospitals to submit official complaints for the ministry to investigate.
   
• As Egypt enters its second week of obligatory mask-wearing in public, the government was still reviewing how quality standards would be set on Sunday, with wide-scale production yet to start.
  • PM Mostafa Mabduly and Trade and Industry Minister Niveen Gamei met on Sunday to review the quality criteria that will be standard for cloth mask producers.
  • The final criteria will require the masks to meet these standards: 
    • Able to withstand at least 25 washes without undermining ability to block particles bigger than 3 microns
    • Liquid penetration tests
    • Air permeability tests to determine ease of breathing
    • “Lint test” to avoid inhalation of tiny fabric fibers
    • Carcinogens and harmful metals test
    • Stable fitting tests 
  • Coordinated mass mask production is set to begin “in days” according to the Cabinet, and will include 100 factories set to produce 8 million cloth masks in phase one. The Cabinet didn’t specify how long phase one would be, however.
  • Factories falling under the Military Production Ministry are already producing cloth masks, with plans to expand output.
     
• The informal economy has come in to supply the demand for facemasks, as the officially sanctioned suppliers are yet to begin mass production eight days after obligatory mask-wearing began to be enforced. Yet news on Sunday showed that informal manufacturers have been met with a crackdown.
  • 5,300 units of masks and gloves were seized from a cosmetics factory owner in the Sahel neighborhood of Shubra.
  • Three people are to be prosecuted for misdemeanors related to producing “faulty masks and sterilizers” in Nasr City, Cairo. 
  • An “unemployed person” in Abou al-Nomros, Giza has been arrested for “converting his home to a mask factory using materials of unknown origins.”
  • In Katameya, New Cairo, police arrested someone for “managing an unlicensed institution and commercial malpractice” for running a facility to produce at least 750 masks.
  • Another person has been referred to trial on a felony charge after being arrested in possession of 42,000 masks of “unknown origins.”
     

Who cares for the healthcare workers? 

• In news of infections and deaths among front-line medical staff:
  • Dr. Yohanna Lotfy, a gynecologist at Qalyubia Hospital, passed away on Sunday due to COVID-19.
  • 100 paramedics have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the head of the Paramedics Syndicate, signalling a jump of 15 infections overnight.
  • Dr. Abdel Gawad Saad, who heads the Parasitology Department at the National Liver Institute in Monufiya, has tested positive and is self-isolating at home.

Working with COVID-19

In news of infections and deaths in other sectors, including Parliament and the media

- Major General Adel Abou al-Haded passed away yesterday due to COVID-19. Haded headed Cairo’s Authority for Cleanliness and Beautification. 

- MP Mohga Ghaleb has announced that she has contracted COVID-19, while MP Badawy al-Neweshy said he was awaiting PCR test results after a clinical examination suggested he could have the virus. This could push the infection count from the House up to 10.

- With a particularly high infection rate among journalists, Maspero, the national media authority, has reportedly recorded around 50 COVID-19 cases, with some confirmed via tests and some by clinical diagnosis. 

- Dr. Khaled al-Amri, the dean of Assiut University’s veterinary faculty, passed away due to COVID-19 on Sunday. 

- Maher Farghly, a researcher on terrorism, announced he has contracted COVID-19.

- A number of investors are equipping a 30-bed hospital to provide COVID-19 treatment to 500,000 factory workers from 10th of Ramadan city, a major industrial hub of 1.5 million residents, said Dr. Mohey Hafez, who is the deputy president of 10th of Ramadan Investors’ Association, and a member of the Egyptian Federation of Investors. Hafez said the quarantine hospital cost LE27 million.